Biography:Andy Konwinski

From HandWiki
Andy Konwinski
Born (1983-10-15) October 15, 1983 (age 42)
Wisconsin, United States
NationalityAmerican
Alma materUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison (BS)
University of California, Berkeley (MS, PhD)
Known for
  • Co-founding Databricks
  • Co-founding Perplexity
  • Laude Institute
  • Laude Ventures
  • Konwinski Prize
  • Apache Mesos
  • Apache Spark
Scientific career
FieldsComputer Science
InstitutionsDatabricks
Perplexity
Laude Institute
Laude Ventures
UC Berkeley
ThesisMulti-agent Cluster Scheduling for Scalability and Flexibility (2012)
Doctoral advisorRandy H. Katz
Websiteandykonwinski.com

Andy Konwinski (born October 15, 1983) is an American computer scientist and billionaire businessman.[1] He is known for co-founding Databricks, a data and AI platform, and for his early contributions to Apache Spark. He also co-founded Perplexity, an AI-powered search engine, the early-stage venture capital firm Laude Ventures, and Laude Institute,[2] a nonprofit institute for computer science researchers. His work bridges research and real-world deployment in software infrastructure and artificial intelligence.

Early life and education

Andy Konwinski was born in 1983 in rural Wisconsin to a religious family who follows Jehovah's Witness.[3] His father worked as a machinist, and his mother was a homemaker and school bus driver.[3] Raised in the Jehovah's Witness faith, Konwinski and his four siblings frequently traveled with their parents, who were senior leaders in the organization, to religious conventions.[3]

During high school, Konwinski began to question the tenets of his religion.[3] His inquiries were discouraged by the community, and at age 18, he was disfellowshipped (expelled) from the faith. Consequently, he was estranged from his community and family members.[3] Following a period of personal difficulty, a high school counselor encouraged him to pursue higher education.[3]

Konwinski attended a trade school and a community college before transferring to the University of Wisconsin–Madison.[3] After receiving his undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Konwinski received his PhD from UC Berkeley, advised by Randy H. Katz.[4][5]

Career

2013–2022: Apache Spark and Databricks

While at UC Berkeley, Konwinski was an early organizer of the Computer Science Graduate Entrepreneurs club.[3] Working in the computer lab alongside fellow researcher Matei Zaharia, he helped develop open-source architectures for large-scale data processing, including Apache Mesos and Apache Spark.[3][6]

In 2013, Konwinski, Zaharia, and five other researchers founded Databricks to commercialize their open-source work.[3][7] Konwinski's early role in the company was akin to a product manager; he focused on community building, organizing user conferences, and assisting early customers with software deployment.[3][8] He stepped back from day-to-day operations in 2019.[3]

2022–present: Perplexity and Laude

After leaving daily operations at Databricks, Konwinski began investing in early-stage startups.[3] Through his initial investment fund, Computer Science Graduate Ventures (CSGV), he met Aravind Srinivas.[3] In 2022, he co-founded the AI-powered search engine Perplexity AI with Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, and Johnny Ho.[9]

In 2024, he co-founded Laude Ventures, an early stage venture firm focused on investing in technical founders, mostly with research backgrounds, with Pete Sonsini and Andrew Krioukov.[10][11][12][13] In 2025, he pledged $100M to establish Laude Institute, an organization for computer science researchers, with Dave Patterson, Jeff Dean, and Joelle Pineau.[2][14]

He co-teaches UC Berkeley’s Research to Startup seminar.[15]

Research

Konwinski has co-authored several influential papers, including "Shaping AI's Impact on Billions of Lives" (2024) with David Patterson, Jeff Dean, John L. Hennessy, Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, and Finale Doshi-Velez;[16][17][18] Dominant Resource Fairness (2011) with Ali Ghodsi, Matei Zaharia, Benjamin Hindman, Scott Shenker, and Ion Stoica;[19] and "A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing" (2009) with David Patterson, Ion Stoica, and Matei Zaharia.[20]

Konwinski is also co-author of the O’Reilly Learning Spark Book.[21]

Personal life

Konwinski is married and has two daughters. He resides in the Burbank, Los Angeles.[3]

Recognition

In 2025, Konwinski delivered the commencement address at the University of California, Berkeley for the College of Computing, Data Science, and Society. The address took place over two ceremonies at the Greek Theatre in Berkeley, California.[22][23][24]

At the 2024 NeurIPS conference in Vancouver, he announced the Konwinski Prize, a $1 million competition to advance AI capabilities in real-world software engineering, by incentivizing open-source progress on a contamination-free version of the SWE-Bench benchmark.[25][26]

In 2025, Konwinski and Turing Award recipient David Patterson gave academic talks on their "Shaping AI" paper to university computer science departments across the United States.[27][28][29]

References

  1. ↑ Carson, Biz; Maloney, Tom; Sloan, Dylan (March 28, 2025). "The New Billionaires of the AI Boom". https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-new-ai-billionaires-list/. 
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Sullivan, Mark (23 June 2025). "This Perplexity cofounder wants to help AI breakthroughs graduate from university labs". Mansueto Ventures, LLC. https://www.fastcompany.com/91356712/databricks-cofounder-andy-konwinski-laude-institute-bet-on-future-of-ai. 
  3. ↑ 3.00 3.01 3.02 3.03 3.04 3.05 3.06 3.07 3.08 3.09 3.10 3.11 3.12 3.13 3.14 Carson, Biz (December 3, 2025). "Andy Konwinski Went From Jehovah’s Witness Outcast to AI Evangelist". https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2025-12-03/who-s-andy-konwinski-databricks-backer-laude-institute-for-ai-research-founder. 
  4. ↑ Nelson, Sara (18 April 2025). "AI Trailblazers Return to UW–Madison to Shape What's Next". University of Wisconsin-Madison. https://cdis.wisc.edu/ai-trailblazers-return-to-uw-madison-to-shape-whats-next/. 
  5. ↑ Lohwater, Tiffany. "Andy Konwinski to speak at CDSS undergraduate commencement ceremonies on May 22 | CDSS at UC Berkeley" (in en). https://cdss.berkeley.edu/news/andy-konwinski-speak-cdss-undergraduate-commencement-ceremonies-may-22. 
  6. ↑ Metz, Cade. "Return of the Borg: How Twitter Rebuilt Google's Secret Weapon". Wired. https://www.wired.com/2013/03/google-borg-twitter-mesos/. Retrieved 3 April 2025. 
  7. ↑ Cai, Kenrick. "Accidental Billionaires: How Seven Academics Who Didn't Want To Make A Cent Are Now Worth Billions" (in en). https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrickcai/2021/05/26/accidental-billionaires-databricks-ceo-ali-ghodsi-seven-berkeley-academics/. 
  8. ↑ "People to Watch 2025 - Andy Konwinski". https://www.bigdatawire.com/people-to-watch-2025-andy-konwinski/. 
  9. ↑ Wiggers, Kyle (4 April 2023). "AI-powered search engine Perplexity AI lands $26M, launches iOS app". Yahoo. https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/04/ai-powered-search-engine-perplexity-ai-lands-26m-launches-ios-app/. 
  10. ↑ Bort, Julie (18 March 2025). "Arcade raises $12M from Perplexity co-founder's new fund to make AI agents less awful". https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/18/arcade-raises-12m-from-perplexity-co-founders-new-fund-to-make-ai-agents-less-awful/. 
  11. ↑ Konrad, Alex. "Laude Ventures Raises $150 Fund With Databricks, Perplexity Founders" (in en). https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2024/12/10/laude-ventures-databricks-perplexity-new-fund/. 
  12. ↑ Chernova, Yuliya (3 May 2024). "Pete Sonsini, Early Investor in Databricks, Gets Closer to Launching New VC Firm". https://www.wsj.com/articles/pete-sonsini-early-investor-in-databricks-gets-closer-to-launching-new-vc-firm-958e2c9d. 
  13. ↑ "Pete Sonsini" (in en). https://www.forbes.com/profile/pete-sonsini/. 
  14. ↑ Bort, Julie (23 June 2025). "Databricks, Perplexity co-founder pledges $100M on new fund for AI researchers". TechCrunch Media LLC. https://techcrunch.com/2025/06/23/databricks-perplexity-co-founder-pledges-100m-on-new-fund-for-ai-researchers/. 
  15. ↑ "Seminar (2024) - Research to Startup". https://startups.berkeley.edu/seminar-sp24/. 
  16. ↑ Cuéllar M, Dean J, Doshi-Velez F, Hennessy J, Konwinski A, Koyejo S, Moiloa P, Pierson E, Patterson D (2024-12-11). "Shaping AI's Impact on Billions of Lives". arXiv:2412.02730 [cs.AI].
  17. ↑ "An agenda to maximise AI's benefits and minimise harms, by David Patterson". The Economist. https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2024/12/03/an-agenda-to-maximise-ais-benefits-and-minimise-harms-by-david-patterson. 
  18. ↑ "Shaping AI's Impact on Billions of Lives" (in en). https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/12/shaping-ais-impact-on-billions-of-lives?lang=en. 
  19. ↑ "Dominant resource fairness: Fair allocation of multiple resource types". 2011. 
  20. ↑ Armbrust, M.; Fox, A.; Griffith, R.; Joseph, A. D.; Katz, R. H.; Konwinski, A.; Lee, G.; Patterson, D. A.; Rabkin, A.; Stoica, I.; Zaharia, M. (2009). "Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing". Technical Report UCB/EECS-2009-28, EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley.
  21. ↑ "Learning Spark" (in en). https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/learning-spark/9781449359034/. 
  22. ↑ Tiffany, Lohwater. "Andy Konwinski to speak at CDSS undergraduate commencement ceremonies on May 22" (in en). https://cdss.berkeley.edu/news/andy-konwinski-speak-cdss-undergraduate-commencement-ceremonies-may-22. 
  23. ↑ Lohwater, Tiffany. "Students celebrate, get inspired by alum speaker at CDSS college graduation" (in en). https://cdss.berkeley.edu/news/students-celebrate-get-inspired-alum-speaker-cdss-college-graduation. 
  24. ↑ "Andy Konwinski commencement speech". 27 May 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBHGpsDPQI4. 
  25. ↑ Albergotti, Reed. "Databricks co-founder offers $1 million prize to solve AI coding problems". https://www.semafor.com/article/12/18/2024/databricks-co-founder-offers-1-million-prize-to-solve-ai-coding-problems. 
  26. ↑ Brandom, Russell (23 July 2025). "A new AI coding challenge just published its first results — and they aren't pretty". TechCrunch Media LLC. https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/23/a-new-ai-coding-challenge-just-published-its-first-results-and-they-arent-pretty/. 
  27. ↑ Benisch, Annie. "Andy Konwinski & Dave Patterson | Shaping AI's Impact on Billions of Lives | Stanford HAI" (in en). Stanford University. https://hai.stanford.edu/events/andy-konwinski-dave-patterson-shaping-ais-impact-on-billions-of-lives. 
  28. ↑ Mai Truong, Kailee. "Dave Patterson (Google and UC Berkeley) & Andy Konwinski (Laude Institute) – "Shaping AI's Impact via Berkeley Style Research Centers"". SKY Computing UC Berkeley Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department (EECS). https://sky.cs.berkeley.edu/events/dave-patterson-google-and-uc-berkeley-andy-konwinski-laude-institute-shaping-ais-impact-via-berkeley-style-research-centers/. 
  29. ↑ Rangel-Fuentes, Alma. "CMS Seminar-Shaping AI for the Public Good via the Berkeley Lab Model" (in en). https://www.caltech.edu/campus-life-events/calendar/cms-lunch-seminar-featuring-david-patterson-and-andy-konwinski-1. 



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